The Safari is still being thwarted by this n that. Monty's illness is a bad case of full-blown Kennel Cough which means he can't meet other dogs for at least until next weekend, so we've had to take him out very early in the morning and when other dogs are less likely to be about for fear of him infecting others. One one of our mid-afternoon walks before the schools come out we came across the first lot of kickable leaves of the autumn. Not many but it's the start - how great is it to hear that crunch of dry leaves underfoot, one of the 'significant' sounds of the advancing year.
We were able to get a couple of hours watching the tide rise from Chat Alley on Saturday morning. It wasn't particularly lively but four Mute Swans coming in from the south and landing on the sea in front of the pier was unusual. They stayed sat on the water for all of our watch and by the time we left had drifted about three miles north and much further offshore on the tide.
A big shoal of fish in the middle distance had a good number of gulls and terns in attendance as well as six diving Gannets. Two Grey Seals were closer in but we didn't see any mammals further out with the shoal.
There were fish much closer too, right under the wall in fact. A few Black Headed Gulls were dipping for tiddlers until one only a few yards out brought an eight or nine inch long fish to the surface and struggled for a minute or so to neck it. No idea what species it was but it couldn't have been much deeper than the soles of the gulls feet. There were a few Sandwich Terns diving nearby too but these were only caching small sprats or Sand-Eels.
We had hoped our position on the cliffs would have produced a bit of visible migration but we only had a couple of Grey Wagtails go past us and a loitering Pied Wagtail was probably a local bird. The three flocks (of 15, five and nine) of Shelducks we saw were all going the 'wrong' way - north!
Later on Patch 1 we had a Migrant Hawker dragonfly over the field, a couple of Speckled Wood butterflies in the wooded area and a Red Admiral nectaring on a neighbours Buddleia bush.
Sunday was a dead loss but we were able to get just over an hour on the rising tide on Monday, we went a little to the north of Chat Alley this time. There was a mist over the sea limiting the visibility to just a couple of miles. A Grey Seal was hanging round the engineering works while above it eight Cormorants were sat on the steel piles. A good number of Sandwich Terns were fishing in both the near and middle distance and also distant were up to 11 Gannets. A juvenile Kittiwake appeared from the north dropped on the sea with some other larger gulls and then continued its journey south, as did an adult a few minutes later.
We watched a Sandwich Tern chase/race which turned out to be an adult, carrying a small fish, and a couple of juveniles. After several hundred yards of jinking and twisting the adult dropped on to the sea followed by the begging youngsters. The fish was dropped by the adult and the nearest youngster upended like a dabbling duck to retrieve it. We've not seen that behaviour before.
Then we became intrigued as to how successful or not Sandwich Terns are at fishing so we started watching one particular individual. Seven out of 10 dives were successful although the other three may have been too with very small fish swallowed very quickly while still only half out of the water and so not seen. A second individual only managed three out of eight successful dives but five were very shallow dips barely breaking the surface and it may have picked something very small from just under the surface. The rasping calls of the terns just offshore is one of the iconic sounds of the summer, and a sound we'll miss before too long. Almost a song title! Just look at that pic on this track - looks vaguely familiar...
Monday saw us back at ex-work on a little errand and with Monty still poorly he couldn't get out of the car so we took him to the beach to the south - he went bonkers, too much pent up energy. There was no one about but the beach and dunes were devoid of life until we returned towards the car and found a nice male Stonechat on the edge of the dunes.
Later in the evening a very wet stroll around a soggy Patch 1 with the Monster gave us two Peregrines roosting in their usual spot. It looked like they'd had a tiff as they were well apart and out of sight of each other.
Time and tide wait for no-one and we're no exception, autumn is a coming and we're gonna have to be ready, hopefully there'll be a dry day or two when the camera can come out and we won't be beset by illness and injuries to either man nor beast.
Where to next? If we had a few extra quid in our pocket and Wifey would allow a week away we wouldn't mind a very long twitch... and meeting up with some internet friends while there.
In the meantime let us know if it's stopped raining in your outback yet.
